You're known for being a very lively performer.

I mean I loved music before that, and I played a bit of guitar when I was younger and thought maybe I’d become a guitar teacher or something, but when I saw other kids doing it I was like, 'Woah, these are great bands! I can do it too.' And then when you start doing it, and people like your stuff, that’s what really gets you hooked. I first started going to shows when I was about 16 – seeing local bands. When did you first know that music was what you wanted to do? Here – prior to a tangibly energetic show at The Garage in Islington last week, which began with DeMarco’s original material and spiraled into off-kilter covers of Eric Clapton and The Beatles, and finally Metallica’s Enter Sandman, topped off by a flying stage dive – AnOther spoke to the free-spirited Canadian about his dream collaborations and writing love songs about Marilyn Monroe. 'I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them' I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.”

Yet all remain open to interpretation: 'A lot of the songs on 2 are pretty personal,' he explains, “but even if I’m writing about something like that I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. Some of the songs are distinctly whimsical – the catchy opening track, Cooking Up Something Good, telling the tale of a son whose father manufactures drugs in the family basement – while others, like love song My Kinda Woman, are more upfront. It is a crooning, grooving, guitar-led record an infectious, idiosyncratic form of pop, which DeMarco terms “jizz-jazz”. Honesty, he stresses, was the key theme behind his full-length album 2, released last October – this time with a cover that shows its protagonist in a plaid shirt, making a peace sign and smoking. If I want to make a career out of this, maybe I should be a little bit more honest to myself.'”

“A lot of guys would come to the shows and go, Mac where are the stilettos tonight? Where’s the lipstick, honey? And I was fine with that but at the same time I thought, 'Wait a minute. “Everybody got a very strange idea of me,” he muses. The EP, described by Pitchfork as a combination of “yacht rock, AM radio gold, and Bowie-like glam,” was a clear indication of DeMarco’s musical flair, but critics and DeMarco alike felt it lacked sincerity. Last April, Mac DeMarco released his first record – the 10-track EP Rock And Roll Night Club, whose title track features on our Another Man playlist – complete with an arresting set of cover art images depicting the then 21-year-old in Halloween regalia and red lipstick.

Another one mac demarco cover